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Covid fraudster given three months to repay loan
- Disciplinary
Peninsula Team, Peninsula Team
(Last updated )
Peninsula Team, Peninsula Team
(Last updated )
An Essex restaurant owner has been ordered to pay back his fraudulent Covid loan plus interest within three months or full or face a longer stint in prison
Ilhan Kekec, 36, was jailed for two and a half years in March 2024 at Isleworth Crown Court after being found guilty of illegally obtaining a £30,000 Covid loan in May 2020, then dissolving the company.
Kekec has now been ordered to pay back the loan in full, plus interest, increasing the amount owed to £37,426. Additionally, Kekec has been ordered to pay £15,900 court costs for the trial.
He was given three months from 20 December to pay the £37,426 in full, or have his sentence increased by 18 months. The judge also stated that if Kekec’s prison sentence was to be increased then the debt will still be owed.
The company Kekec used to apply for the loan, Hizrali Ltd, was set up just three weeks before the first lockdown in March 2020, stating it had earnt £125,000 to claim the £30,000 loan. He then withdrew the money to clear his personal debts.
Alexander Grierson, head of asset recovery at the Insolvency Service, said: ‘Ilhan Kekec not only supplied false information to fraudulently acquire £30,000 in taxpayer funds at the start of the pandemic but then proceeded to use the loan to pay off personal debts.
‘This was not how the loans were supposed to be used and Kekec himself declared in his application that he would use the money for the economic benefit of his business.
‘Securing this confiscation order is important as it means Kekec must pay this money back in full or spend even longer in prison.’
By June 2020 Kekec applied to dissolve the company, saying it was not ‘economically viable’ to continue running the business, failing to inform the creditors of this application.
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Peninsula Team, Peninsula Team
(Last updated )
Peninsula Team, Peninsula Team
(Last updated )
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